Tag: nurturer of ideas

So you have a good idea? There’s one you captured because you’ve become a good collector of ideas (see my prequel blog post to this called Be a Collector of Ideas). You jotted the idea down in your ever ready notebook and now it’s all you think about. The idea grows and grows until it morphs into a full blown story, and if you don’t start writing the story soon, the character or characters in your head will mutiny and will never let you sleep again.

Your main character is a salesman from Kansas and he loves to ride bikes. He has a thing for chocolate mint ice-cream and hums to himself wherever he goes. He’s a thin guy with a mole on his chin, but his smile seems to be infectious as it brightens anyone’s day he shines it to. Everyone he encounters leaves with a bounce in their step (and no, they aren’t infected by the Xithendkiyta!). And then he mets Gimerla Do.

Ideas are the building blocks of stories. All it takes is a great idea to get a story going, and other awesome ideas to keep it rolling along. It can start anywhere from a super awesome character, a setting, a theme, an event, even cool technology and other items or thoughts that can give a story its original spark. Without that originating idea, stories would never be born or even conceived in the first place, so to be a writer it’s essential to be a collector of ideas.

Where do ideas come from? That’s an easy answer, but with an application that’s hard to apply at times. But let’s start with the answer first.